Saturday, 22 March 2008

Chicken Porridge

The weather today has been horrible. We've had wind, rain, hail and sleet; some of it coming down sideways. The Girls are like little fluffy balls at the moment, and have spent quite a lot of time sheltering under the Coop.

Having ventured into a nearby town to do some shopping, I came back freezing. I decided to make the Girls some porridge: pellets mixed with hot water and a bit of poultry spice. It smelt vile. I slopped it (they like it sloppy apparently) into three coop cups, and braved the hail to put it out in the run for them. It was ignored completely.

Dejected, I came back in to the house and wondered where I had gone wrong. Maybe I should have put it in their treat bowl and fed it to them that way.

A little later I went out to put out their Swingball, and I thought I'd try dropping a couple of corn kernels in each bowl of porridge to encourage them to eat it. The coop cups were completely empty!

The day wore on, the weather worsened. When we had a minor snow storm I decided that I would give them a second helping of porridge at about 4; this would give them time to eat it and digest it before going to bed.